Are you Well-Architected?

Sam Hallawell@shallawell

January 2019

About @shallawell

• Technical Director / Acting CTO @ intelematics.com

• 5+ years experience with AWS

• 25+ years in IT in lots of roles

• Previously worked for AWS partners (doing Well Architected Reviews)

• A passion for good (IT, not buildings!) architecture

• 9 AWS certifications

• Blog https://shallawell.wordpress.com

So – you have a workload on AWS ?

YOU should I do a AWS Well-Architected Review

• Measure, Learn, Improve

• Make better informed decision

• Lower or mitigate risks

• Raise the bar for future workloads

• Learn about your solution (what you thought/hoped you had vs what you actually have)

• Learn about and adopt new services (always something new)

What is the Well-Architected Framework?

https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/architecture/AWS_Well-Architected_Framework.pdf

Pillars Design Principles Questions

What are the 5 pillars?

Performance Efficiency

Security Cost OptimisationOperational Excellence

Reliability

Each pillar has its own Design Principles which should be review and used to guide you through the design process of your workload

The General Design Principles

• Stop guessing your capacity needs

• Test systems at production scale

• Automate to make architectural experimentation easier

• Allow for evolutionary architectures

• Drive architectures using data

• Improve through game days

Visualising the Well-Architected Framework

https://wa.aws.amazon.com/map.htmlhttps://www.awsgeek.com/posts/AWS-Well-Architected-Framework/

Some Example Questions

So, how does AWS Well-Architected Review work?

AWS Well-Architected Tool

• Re:Invent 2018 saw the introduction of the AWS Well-Architected Tool

• Previously only available to AWS and selected AWS Premium Partners

• Not as flashy as other cool things like ‘containers’

AWS Well-Architected Tool

What the tool does and doesn’t do

IT DOES• It provides a portal for a DIY approach using the Well-Architected Q’s• A place to track your Well-Architected Review results• Reminder you of topics of importance you may have forgotten• Provide a PDF version of the Q&A to share with others

IT DOESN’T• Provide specific recommendations (which buckets are open, which

Security Groups are open to the world)• Automate the remediation the findings• Replace the skill of humans

Other resources?

• AWS Well-Architected Framework Whitepaper https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/• 5 separate pillar Whitepapers for a deep dive on each topic• Well-Architected specific Lens –• Serverless• High Performance Compute• IoT (Internet of Things)

• Use AWS SA’s or AWS Partners to assist for a detailed review

Even more resources?• AWS Game Days https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/testing-aws-gameday-with-the-aws-well-architected-framework/

• AWS Trusted Advisor https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/technology/trusted-advisor/ & Cost Explorer https://aws.amazon.com/aws-cost-management/aws-cost-explorer/

• AWS Architecture Centre https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/

• AWS What’s New https://aws.amazon.com/new/ – monitor AWSUG Slack or get a browser plugin & AWS

• AWS Blogs https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/

• Follow @WellArchitected https://twitter.com/WellArchitected (Fitz - Lead for AWS Well-Architected team)

• Check lists https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/Security/AWS_Security_Checklist.pdfhttps://media.amazonwebservices.com/AWS_Operational_Checklists.pdf